If the first match is any indication, better start engraving Serena Williams’ name on that U.S. Open trophy. The world No. 1, hoping to become the first woman in 27 years to win the calendar Grand Slam, won her first match in a grand total of 21 minutes of playing time, a 6-2, 2-0 victory over No. 86 Vitalia Diatchenko, who was clearly struggling with injury before retiring after losing her eighth straight game.
Some of the highlights and lowlights from the match:
• The first five games took 12 minutes. Then, Diatchenko took a medical timeout which lasted almost as long: seven minutes.
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• Despite that timeout, the official time of the first set took 21 minutes (medical timeouts are included). The actual time was closer to 14 minutes. For the regular match, the official time was 30 minutes, though there was 21 minutes of play between the two medical timeouts.
• Serena won 32 points. Diatchenko won five. Serena served four games and lost two points in total. Diatchenko won three points on her serve and was 0-12 on her second serve.
• The fourth game of the first set took one minute, 11 seconds. Though there are literally hundreds of other comparisons out there, this 1978 French Open rally, between Bjorn Borg and Guillermo Vilas and immediately came to mind, took almost twice as long.
• The problem with these early-round, injury-aided wins (not that Serena wouldn’t have won if Diatchenko had been 100% and playing her A+ game) is that they bring into question how much money plays a role in the decision to play. The Russian gets $39,500 for her first-round loss, which is pocket change to the big-time players but a huge deal to a player who has made $163,000 this year. That might sound like a good year, but when you factoring in training, hotels, coaches, physios and the other costs involved, it’s not a whole lot. Would she have withdrawn if the money hadn’t been so good? Surely there’s a better way than this.
• Serena probably would have preferred a real match, not 21 minutes of glorified warmup, but she was classy in “victory.” When asked what she said to Diatchenko after the match, Serena told ESPN, “I said her I was proud of her for even coming out and making this effort knowing she was injured.” No, she didn’t use air quotes around the word effort.
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